Touching Stars
by TheInsaneLoricWhovian
Summary: Collection of one shots/short pieces.
1. Break

**Break**

There is a boy standing on his feet in New York city, a phone in his pocket, soldiers all around. He has seen much this boy, seen blood and death and suffering and has not yet reached his seventeenth birthday. But no matter what, he carries on. He has a purpose, a duty, and he's going to fulfil it.

(Or die trying.)

Something has just changed, and now they have a chance. He feels as though nothing could destroy this moment.

(He is wrong, so very, very wrong.)

There's a smile on his face when the phone rings.

There isn't when the call goes silent.

The phone falls out of his hand.

He sinks to the floor.

 _There's a boy in Ohio who watches his Dad's Chevy truck pull out of the driveway. The boy will wait for him, he should be back within an hour at the latest. But he isn't, and the boy will wait hours, days, weeks, months, years before he sees his Father again, never quite knowing why he left and always wondering if maybe, just maybe, the reason he didn't come back was because of him._

 _There's a girl who watches as a monster takes away the woman she's come to see as a mother in the worst way possible. Whatever was holding the girl back falls away, and she shoves whatever remorse she can deep down inside. She vows to steer clear of emotional attachment._

 _There's a boy who feels himself become one as he's forced to do something he never wanted to do. He relives the moment over and over again, over and over again, over and over again, even years later it still comes back to him, coming to him out of the blue with a feeling of guilt, self hatred and ever growing rage._

 _There's a boy who's pushed to the side and forgotten in favour of a woman, a woman he can tell is bad news but can't say anything to the one person he can. He blames himself when the betrayal comes. He blames himself for not protecting his guardian, and swears he will never live to see another friend of his come to the same fate at the betrayal of another._

 _There's a girl who feels herself break when her first love falls to the ground. Her estranged guardian, her drunken friend, her best friend's Papa, it is her first love whose death hurts the most. It is her first love which turns her heart to ice._

 _There's a boy who feels himself break, or, more accurately, suddenly becomes aware of how broken he has been for quite some time, too long actually. The first cracks started to show on an island in the ocean and the following events just made them grow to the point where his shattered pieces shattered into even smaller pieces. When he sees the look on the girls face though, he becomes aware that there is now a black hole in place of his soul._

 _There's a boy like no other of his kind who stands on an imaginary beach and watches as the ghost of a girl he'd come to love fades into nothingness. It is strange, the boy thinks later, that he had never even had the chance to touch her. She was his catalyst, and his purpose since he was thirteen years old has been to avenge her, and maybe, just maybe, make the world a better place. Her spirit is gone, her memory isn't. The love of his life was his reason for living, and though she was gone he had to keep fighting._

There is a boy on his knees in New York city, a phone lying a few feet away, soldiers all around. He has seen much this boy, seen blood and death and suffering and has not yet reached his seventeenth birthday. But this, this is the scenario he did not dare even have nightmares about come true. This is the end of the world, not the spaceships in the sky or the dying people, but the impossible loss he has just suffered.

Surrounded by thousands of concerned people, soldiers and civilians alike, he is a supernova mixed with a volcano about to erupt, and with this blow, he knows this for certain:

He will carry on. Setrakus Ra will die. So will anyone who played any part in what led to the events in the jungle miles and miles and miles away.

There is also one more thing he knows.

He no longer has any intentions of surviving this war. He is a boy - not yet a man - with nothing to lose. And that means he is dangerous. Dangerous, ready to kill, and with an endless supply of legacies at his fingertips - the Mogadorians would later mark this as the day they lost the war.

John Smith, Number Four, was the last to break. The last to break and the fastest to break, he was a force to be reckoned with.


	2. Down the Rabbit Hole

**Down the Rabbit Hole.**

 _We're leaving in the morning._

The words echo in Nine's head as he paces through the penthouse.

He's angry, he's so damn angry, at himself, for luring that damn Mog to that damn elevator, and at Sandor, for just expecting him to up and leave his - his _home_. _Their_ home.

He needs something to take his mind off this shit. He ends up in the Lecture Hall, just fighting and fighting and fighting because the adrenaline is the only thing which can make his mind go blank.

Somehow Sandor ends up in the Lectern's seat. They exchange words and suddenly, Nine's standing on the wall. Sandor lets out a whoop of delight and it makes Nine mad, so very, very mad. He isn't really in his right mind when he uses his staff to shear the Lectern in half.

The room is dark and Sandor puts a hand on his shoulder, and Nine feels like running.

But he doesn't, and he wonders why.

"Nine..." Sandor is saying. "I... I'm sorry,"

Nine didn't know what he was expecting Sandor to say, but it wasn't ' _I'm sorry'_.

All of his anger fades. Now, he's just sad.

Sandor says something else, choking on his words. "I was never meant... take care of you... my girlfriend..." Nine registers his tears with some sort of detachment. He just moves his arms robotically and pulls his Cepan into a hug, not saying a word.

He starts crying too, and they just stand there, hugging, crying, in one private moment that they will never share with anyone else, ever.

He doesn't remember how they eventually separate, but it's the middle of the night, he's in his room, and he's packing his things. Maddy is better off without him, anyway.

 _We're leaving in the morning._

They're both silent as they watch the city that's been home for the past five years fade slowly into the distance as they make their get away amongst digested traffic.

Neither off them catch sight of a car entering the city, containing a Mogadorian General who is wasting his time.

They've spoken only one or two words to one another all morning. They don't need to. Neither of them slept a wink, and neither of them acknowledge it.

They ride in silence, their only possessions a single laptop, Nine's chest, his iMog, and their personal bags. Who knew what use it would be - it had pretty much saved his life just yesterday.

Nine doesn't know what their destination is, nor does he ask. He'll find out when he gets there. He should just try and enjoy the journey.

Somewhere along the road, he falls asleep, and when he wakes up the sky is starting to turn orange. Nine turns his head to stare out of the window, just in time to lock eyes with some blonde kid, probably about his age. A normal, blonde kid playing with a dog. He's pretty sure it's a Beagle, but he's not entirely sure because before he can blink the boy and the dog are fading figures.

The kid is nothing like Nine.

A few minutes later, they pull up in front of a vacant house in some small town neighbourhood, and Sandor must have made some calls while he was out or something because inside they meet a woman, and Sandor must have mentioned something because she's all quiet and sympathetic, and within minutes the house is theirs.

"Well," Sandor looks at him. "Paradise, Ohio. What do you think?"

Nine can't stand it. It's nothing like Chicago. It's tiny and it's quiet, no cars zooming past at all hours of the night. But he doesn't say that. What he says is:

"I think I'm more like Spiderman than Batman now, don't you think?"

And he says this because he needs things to be alright between him and Sandor, because he's the only thing that's ever been constant in Nine's messed up life.

Sandor cracks a tired, wicked grin, and Nine thinks that maybe, just maybe, they could settle down here. It might not be Chicago, but at least they are together.

Because a world without Sandor? Nine couldn't even imagine it.

He didn't want to.


	3. Dance Again

**Dance Again**

There's something at the foot of her bed when she wakes up, and at first she thinks it's John (because who else other than her boyfriend would be in her bedroom?) but it isn't, the thing at the foot of her bed is too small and, after a quick poke with her toes, it is furry and warm.

Sarah can tell that something is very, very wrong but she just can't quite figure out what it is. It's probably nothing, anyway, she thinks as she falls back onto her bed.

Wait a moment.

Her bed? Sarah flies up onto her feet, and, disorientated, staggers back a few steps.

Her bed, in Paradise, Ohio, in which she hadn't slept in months? That couldn't be right, could it? But it was - this, Sarah Hart knew, this was definitely her bed. And the room she was in - it was without a doubt definitely her bedroom.

Sarah moves her eyes to the foot of the bed. There, staring at her, with wide eyes, a colour she couldn't quite name, was a small, black rabbit.

The rabbit jumps off the bed, hops its way over to her, where she's standing stupefied in a pink nightgown, not entirely sure how she got to her bedroom, or why there was a rabbit padding around like it owned the place.

It stops a few feet away from her, and she doesn't say a word as the rabbit, slowly but surely grows into something much less rabbit-shaped. A boy Sarah happened to know very well.

A boy called Eight.

He smiles at her, and suddenly she remembers, and suddenly she understands.

"Eight?" She asks, as if the dark skinned boy in front her could ever be anyone else.

He smiles at her, gleeful and yet somehow reserved. "That would be my name, Ms. Hart."

"I - but - you're - I'm - oh - John!" Sarah isn't sure the next words to come out of her mouth make sense, but she's vaguely aware she might be having a panic attack.

Was it even possible to have a panic attack when you were dead?

Eight reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder, and Sarah isn't sure if it's some kind of legacy he's developed in wherever-this-is, or just Eight's presence, but it calms her.

"I know," He tells her, and there's something in his eyes, his sad smile, that makes her believe him. "I know."

 _Oh_ , she thinks, _Marina_.

Sarah moves away from Eight, and knows in the core of her being that one day, one precious day, she will her John again. She only hopes that in the mean time, he can survive without her by his side.

Eight smiles, full to the brim with uncontainable excitement. "Come on, Sarah. Wait till you see what this place... It's amazing, it really is."

And Sarah believes him, because her bedroom is gone and she flying through the stars, she can see the universe, the life of it, and it's _beautiful,_ and she can't help but feel more alive than she has ever been.

Sarah isn't sure how much time passes, time is strange here, it's endless and hard to keep track of.

All she knows is that she and One (who, she must say, was a very good friend) are dancing together in a dance room so huge she could barely see the other side, without any shame, to song after song after song, by different people, different _species_ \- lots and lots of different species. Turns out there were more than eighteen life sustaining planets, as John had told her once.

They were just taking a break and leaning against a bar together, Devektra, who Sarah had met on many occasions while drifting around her afterlife, singing in the background, when it happens.

Someone taps her on the shoulder, and she turns to see who it is.

She almost doesn't recognise him. He looks different, older, slightly, but not by much, and his hair is at his shoulders. _He looks_ , she thinks, before she registers what is happening, _he looks a bit like Nine_.

But it's John, not Nine, standing before her, and she doesn't waste a moment pulling him in for a kiss. She's not sure how long the kiss lasts - long enough for One to make an escape back to the dance floor - but it wasn't long enough.

She hears Devektra start another song, this one heartfelt and yet rhythmic and fiery. She takes John by the hand, and pulls him to the dance floor. They can talk later. Now, she just wants to hold him close and never let go again.

They're going to dance, and this time, they're never going to stop.


	4. Gone

**Gone**

Sandor is pretty sure he is having a panic attack.

Nine's gone. _Nine's gone._ **Nine** _is_ g o n e _._

He's only felt like this once before in his life - a few weeks after the ship had landed. He'd taken Nine shopping and one moment he was there next to him and the next he wasn't. Sandor had run up and down every aisle in the store before finding him in the toy aisle playing with a teddy bear he'd picked off the shelf.

He remembers how he felt, then. The icy chill down his spine, the cold sweat on his forehead. It's the same now, except it's worse. It's worse because he knows Nine left on purpose this time.

It's worse because Sandor isn't sure Nine wants to come back.

 _Nine is gone, and this night can't get any worse_ , he thinks.

 _Invoke Murphy's law, why don't you?_ he thinks, as the master alarm on his computer starts blaring.

Mogadorian- _s,_ plural. They're in the city, they're enough of them to make up a small army, and, Sandor thinks, somehow calm, Nine is gone.

Nine.

He has to find Nine.

He calls him repeatedly, texts him multiple times, and with no answer, realises that trying to contact him is only going to waste valuable time.

So, on automatic, he tracks the minuscule GPS he hid in Nine's iMog and the address comes up within minutes, one he recognises.

It's Maddy's. Call him paranoid, but he wasn't going to let Nine go out with just anybody. A quick background check on her and he'd come to the conclusion that she checked out. Nothing suspicious at all.

He runs out of the building as quickly as he can, to the car Nine had used to take Maddy out. One look at the fuel gage, and it isn't enough. He'll have to run.

He runs. But there's just one problem, he doesn't know where her apartment is exactly, and on foot he doesn't have a high-tech personalised Satnav or anything to direct him - he loses his way.

By the time he approaches the building, the sky is light and the city is starting to wake. He enters, trying not to pay attention to the broken windows.

But once he gets inside, it's impossible to ignore. Everything is trashed. There's ash, too. There's ash covering every surface, and for just a moment Sandor is proud, until he remember that Nine isn't here.

Nine is gone, in the worst possible way. And if they came to Maddy's apartment, she's probably gone too, and in a different and permanent way.

Nine is gone, and Sandor hasn't the first clue how to find him, but he knows that he will find Nine and probably die trying.


	5. Choice

**Choice**

"Lorien chose you."

That's what they said, when the first wave of Mogadorians started bombing the most populated cities. Right now, I don't remember who it was which first said that phrase. All I know is, that in April 2011, I woke up one morning to news channel after news channel displaying impossible scenes.

Family of five, we all crowded around the television screen in horrified awe after a text from my uncle. Dad thought it was a joke, Mum had a panic attack, my older brother Kim started got really angry in a quiet way and Josie, my younger sister said we had to help somehow. My Dad was halfway through telling her to _shut the hell up, it's just a prank_ when I set on fire.

It was the most terrifying experience of my life, and I couldn't stop it. Something changed then, my parents, they couldn't stand me. They were afraid, and I could tell. Afraid of this sudden corruption of everything they had come to view as normal.

"Lorien is perfect."

That's what they said after the war ended, when the Mogadorian's stopped attacking. Perfect, they said, as I had nightmares of seeing my brother and sister die because I couldn't protect them, because Lorien didn't choose them and they didn't know how to use any weapons.

Anyway, it doesn't matter now. Nothing matters. I've lost everything, the life I loved, the people closest to me. My family is gone, I have no friends to speak of, the monsters who invaded our planet are here to stay as if they never partook in a genocide, and the ones who saved it are in charge. It seems to me the Mogadorians came to invade but the Loric ended up doing it instead.

"Lorien chose you." That's what they keep saying, like it's a good thing. Like it's not incredibly non-consensual, as if it's a blessing, a gift.

One man's gift is another man's burden.

Lorien might have "chosen" me, but I never chose Lorien.

And shouldn't that make a difference?


	6. Memory

**Memory**

" _I notice a girl taking pictures, moving easily from one group to the next. She's shockingly beautiful with straight blond hair past her shoulder, ivory skin, high cheekbones, and soft blue eyes. Everyone seems to know her and says hello to her, and no one objects to her taking their picture._

 _She sees me, smiles, and waves. I wonder why and turn to see if someone is behind me. There are, two kids discussing math homework, but no one else. I turn back around. The girl walks towards me, smiling. I've never seen a girl so good-looking, much less spoken to one, and I've definitely never had one wave and smile as if we were friends. I'm immediately nervous, and start blushing. But I'm also suspicious, as I'm trained to be. As she nears me, she lifts the camera and starts snapping pictures. I raise my hands to block my face. She lowers the camera and smiles._

' _Don't be shy.'"_

 **\- I Am Number Four, John meets Sarah for the first time.**

My eyes shoot open, and for a disorientated few seconds, I'm thinking I'm still a new kid at Paradise high school, Ohio, in the year 2010, and a really pretty girl wants to take pictures of me.

But of course, I'm not, I can't be, because with a wave of nostalgia, I realise that it's impossible.

Because, it's the year 2020, he was on the planet Lorien with several hundred others, although their population was rapidly increasing. Paradise, Ohio, was billions of miles away on another planet entirely.

I throw the covers off myself and stare out my window. Although it's a sight I'm greeted with every morning, I'll never get tired of it. How could I? The chance to see Lorien's sun shine high above with a wide expanse of forest for miles. While Lorien is living, I will always cherish it - for over ten years of my life I lived in a world where I didn't know if I was safe, or if I would ever see Lorien again.

But now I am safe, I'm living on Lorien, and today…

Today is my wedding day, today I'm going to become Mr. Hart, and Sarah is going to become Mrs. Smith.

Fitting, that I should dream of they day I first met Sarah. I wonder what I would change if I could travel back in time to that day. I'd probably change nothing, because if that moment had never happened, I wouldn't be here today.

Life has never been better.


	7. Hollow

**Hollow**

The worst thing he hates about himself is that he always wants what he knows he can never have.

Like when he was a kid, still so small and living on an abandoned island doing nothing day in day out, making up stories about living life as Cody in Canada - he knew it was impossible, but he dreamed anyway. Because he'd been lonely.

He's always been lonely, for as long as he can remember, and it's never stopped. From what he can remember about the trip to earth, he was reserved and quiet, and he stayed to himself rather than try and intermingle with the other Garde.

When his Cepan had gone into overdrive and forced him into isolation on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean, he was pretty much burning whatever social skills Five had somehow managed to hold on to.

What happened to the kid on that island, he thinks. What happened to the boy who couldn't even kill a snake.

What happened to that boy that changed him enough that just a few years later he's standing over the body of his own kind.

And now, all Five wants is to turn back the clock, change the way he acted. All he wants is to not be part of all this shit. All Five wants is to not be Loric at all. He wishes he was just some ignorant human being who had no idea of the danger they were in. He wishes he had had a normal childhood.

He always wants what he knows he can never have.


	8. Stargazing

**Stargazing**

There's a star in the sky, shining like all the others. A mystery and an enigma for stargazers world wide, whether they be astronomers or scientists or just people who took a moment to appreciate the magnificence of the world around them.

It's part of the Orion constellation, resting in the middle of two others. It is a perfectly ordinary star, indistinguishable from those around it.

To Number Eight though, the star is much more than that. The star he looks up at now is a blue-white super giant, one the humans have taken to calling Alnilam. 1340 light-years away, there is a planet named Lorien orbiting this supergiant, suspended in a goldilocks zone and yet, tragically, abandoned and lifeless.

It is strange, he thinks, as he lies on his back in the Himalayas and stares up at the sky, that the very light reaching his eyes now is the very same light that his ancestors experienced in real time, a thousand years ago.

Reynolds would always point out the star to him, and say, one day, Eight, we'll go back there, you and I, and the others who came with us, we'll go back there and we'll revive Lorien.

But Reynolds is gone now, and Eight, gazing intently at the star, hopes with every ounce of his being that wherever Reynolds is, he's home. The star is his only guidance now, his only companion. It is the reminder of his mortality, and his importance, and a symbol of his connection to the other Loric wherever they may be. He wonders if perhaps they too are looking at this star, lying at the centre of Orion's belt, and dreaming of home.

Eight watches the star for hours and hours, until dawn approaches and the star vanishes, to be replaced with the beginnings of twilight.

Years later, he looks back up at that star again, at the dead of night and standing on top of a tall building in Chicago, Illinois, America. It's a far cry from the Himalayas, and the sky isn't nearly as clear, clouded and dulled by light pollution.

But he can still see the star called Alnilam. Below him sleeps the other Garde, reunited after all the time they spent apart. Eight doesn't know what's wrong, but his premonition legacy won't stop giving him flashing warning signs while he sleeps, and it's all he can do to shake the feeling of foreboding when he wakes up to stone cold silence.

Something is coming, one of the Garde is in danger and Eight has no idea who it is, and he's worried. Worried that it could mean one of his greatest friends was going to die.

So here he was, on the roof of the John Hancock Center, and searching for answers in his star, Lorien's star.

The star itself does not answer him, but seeing it calms his nerves a little.

Whatever happens, Eight trusts that one day, no matter how, he will return to that little hunk of rock orbiting a star over a thousand light-years away, whether it be in this life, or, as he thought of the teachings of the Hindu faith he had come to know so well, the next.


	9. Spark

**Spark**

The life form known as Rexicus Saturnus, of the Mogadorian species, was perfectly content with the way things were in his life.

He adored order, and he believed the words written by the Beloved Leader in the Great Book were true to the core. He worked hard at his studies, obeyed orders and trained as much as he could. He was, in mind and body, a model Mogadorian, and he was proud of this fact, because everyone of worth he had ever met respected him.

Until the day his path crossed with one Adamus Sutekh, a legend among the Mogadorians - a disgrace to their name, the link in the chain.

Yes, the story of Adamus Sutekh was one which was very well known. He was a model Mogadorian at a young age, until he took part in an experiment which had him in a coma for three years and sent him insane. Disillusioned and wild, his weakness had been discovered by Ivanick Shu-Ra, a noble Mogadorian who saw the danger his brother was becoming to the Progress and took swift action while on the Third Mission in Kenya.

The action failed, however, and Adamus, spiralling deeper into immorality, returned to his home base and blew it up, escaping with a human prisoner, and, reportedly, caused an earthquake. The Mogadorians had no doubt the poor fool would perish in his infantile acts, but the story spread, and Adamus Sutekh became a famous figure, a traitor whose name was used an insult towards young Mogadorians who did not train hard enough.

When Rex first meets him, his very being despises Adamus on principle. Why would that not be the case? Adamus had killed other Mogadorians, his own race, as if they were nothing.

Then he encountered the Chimaera, a wolf which Adamus took to calling Dust. And he couldn't help but think the way they had been described in the Great Book was wrong - this creature seemed loyal, caring. As if it had its own emotions, and was not just a savage pest.

Though he tries to push these treasonous thoughts deep down inside him, his perspective was warped again when he encountered a wandering scout group during his time with Adamus. The scouts, nothing more than Vatborn, had no qualms with firing at Adamus with the desire to kill.

It was Rex's first side on the other side of the grass, and it was not pretty, not by a long shot.

In his hiding place, watching from afar, Rex starts to feel an emotion he has never experienced him before - shame. Hiding is nothing new to Rex. He's always been regarded as a model Mogadorian, in theory, but he knows that in the field he is a coward. He sees Adam fighting the Mogadorian soldiers and the earth is literally quaking. Rex is mesmerised, and even though he is supposed to hate Adam for killing his own kind, he can't help but think he does not have a choice but to fight.

Rex leads his troops into battle while marching behind them. Rex does this because he is afraid, afraid of failure, of dying, afraid of something, he just can't pinpoint what. Rex never tells anyone his fears, because fear is a weakness, and Rex is a perfect Mogadorian, and perfect Mogadorians do not have weaknesses.

Rex isn't sure how, but he ends up with Adam (it's Adam now, when did he start thinking of this traitor as Adam?) in a car he stole, offering to help him save the chimaera and then confessing to him that he is a coward, afraid of being thought of as a traitor, confessing that he is not a perfect Mogadorian.

He expects Adam to laugh at him, to mock him, or sneer at him, as his once brother, Ivanick Shu-Ra would have. But he doesn't - he just asks him why he was helping him, a known traitor of the Mogadorians.

Rex isn't sure why he's trying to help either, but he respects Adam. He tells Adam as such, adding in stuff about how he believes in Setrakus Ra and how war is in his blood, although he isn't sure if he's trying to prove this to Adam or to himself.

It's on Plum Island where he finds out what is happening to the chimaera, and he can't help but be sickened by their tortured forms. It's the image he carries with him when he kills the guards protecting the cells. Rex vaguely wonders if perhaps he is as bad as Adam now, but ignores the thought and aids Adam in his escape anyway. Too far to turn back now, he thinks.

And then he's saying farewell to the one other Mogadorian he had ever been able to be himself around, who saved his life. He understands Adam more, now, but he knows he is not like Adam.

Adam no longer believes in the Great Book, and actively despises it. Rex, after spending time with Adam, thinks he is now starting to doubt it too. But Rex cannot go with Adam, who wants to be extreme and join the Garde in person and help them save humanity.

Rex though, he can't see himself with the Garde, he would not feel comfortable in their presence.

But he can see himself with the Mogadorians, sowing seeds of doubt in their faith in Setrakus Ra, slowly climbing the ranks and becoming someone he trusts. And if the war were to start turning in the favour of the Garde, he would stage a rebellion. And if the war were to go in the favour of the Mogadorians, well. He'd be the fronts right hand. Rex knows that this is cowardly, but he is only trying to protect himself, and his people.

Rex, upon seeing things from another perspective, was a spark set into place by Adam's ember, ready to ignite an explosion at the heart of the Mogadorian empire at any given moment.

Adam started doubting the Beloved Leader and was inspired to tear the Mogadorian belief apart at the front lines, side by side in battle with their enemy. Rex started doubting the Beloved Leader and was inspired to tear it down from the inside but only if absolutely necessary. Rex just wants the outcome where more Mogadorians don't die.

He is not a perfect Mogadorian, but Rex likes to think he is a good one.


	10. Remember the Past

**Remember the Past**

 _"What's your name?" I ask him once I've got my breath back. Might as well know who I'm dealing with._

 _"Rexicus Saturnus," he answers after a minute. The name sounds vaguely familiar. - **The Lost Files: The Forgotten Ones**_

Rexicus Saturnus, son of Geruna and Harrian Saturnus, spent most of his childhood at Ashwood estates. His father was the second hand to the General himself, and as such his family was held in high favour, respected by the upper true born and feared by the lower true born and vatborn alike.

From birth he was raised to respect and follow the orders of the Mogadorian regime, expected to cater the whims of the General (and his family, as they were perfect examples of the purity of Mogadorian society under the direction of the Beloved Leader Setrakus Ra).

From the moment he learned to walk and talk he was placed next to the second Sutekh child (though originally birthed by Shu-Ra's, he was the Generals' Ward, and therefore, to be treated as royalty). Ivan's company had been tolerable at first, but as the years went by he seemed to realise the amount of power he held, and so he abused it by ordering people about and using it to do whatever he wanted. He reminded Rex of a spoiled brat, which he was, but he never spoke out against it, because to do so would be a blow on his family's honour.

His close connections with Ivan meant he often saw his older brother Adam, who was the General's son by blood, and his first born. Unlike his brother, Adam was rather quiet and reserved, not really speaking out much. He certainly didn't abuse his power like Ivan.

He never really saw much of Adam, but the few times he did speak with Rex, he came off as a charming, respectful young Mogadorian. Rex often felt he was holding back sometimes, but never mentioned it. He did that himself.

Rex remembers the celebration of the death of Number One. He certainly remembers Ivan's bragging, his elaborate tales of the Mogadorian ambush and his exaggerated tales of how he took part in the action himself, distracting the Loric scum just enough so that one of the vat-born could run her through. Rex didn't believe that, though he didn't mention it.

He remembers a few days after that, when Adam is taken by his Father for a 'special mission'. Remembers a few weeks later, just enough time that there were whispers of Adam's disappearance. Remembers the announcement of his coma, of the atrocity committed against him by Dr Lockham Anu.

Soon after this announcement, Rex's father was stationed to another base, located somewhere in Europe. They were given a week's warning in which his father was to gather what he needed and prepare for his next mission.

Rex remembers being sent down to the labs to gather some files for his father.

Rex remembers standing in shock at the sight of Adam hooked up to a wide range of IV's, a heart monitor, with an oxygen mask over his face. The boy looked dead. Rex remembers standing there, realising that Adam looked vulnerable as he lay on the bed. He stands there watching his unmoving form for another minute before he remembers why he came down and departs with files, the General's son on his mind.

Three years and two months after his father is repositioned, he is killed in action in a confrontation a Loric in London, an event now labelled The Second Mission. Rex is a wreck, but he doesn't show his grief. Grief has no place in Mogadorian culture. He hears rumours that Adam finally woke up, and Rex doesn't know and doesn't care if it's true. He puts Adam out of his mind and focuses on his training, desperate to live up to his father's name.

He doesn't think about Adam again until a few years later, when he's brought back to the forefront of his mind because Adam's a traitor and has blown up Ashwood and escaped with a high level human prisoner, and is a Level B fugitive

Three of his childhood friends, friends who had known Adam themselves, are killed in the wreckage. It angers him that Adam would do this. It angers him that anyone would turn against their entire species. It's just _wrong_.

Adam remains like that in Rex's mind, a traitor, and something wrong.

Until, that is, Rex ends up meeting him.

And then his entire world view changes.

Adam is nothing like the boy he knew as a kid, and yet, he's exactly the same.

Somehow, Rex finds it him to respect the Mogadorian holding him captive, despite knowing he's killed people who should have been his friends, knowing he's killed family, because there's _no way_ Ivan survived the blast, being at the front of the troop. At first he puts it down to a temporary development of Stockholm Syndrome, but that pretence doesn't last.

The thing was, every time Rex looked at Adam, he couldn't help but see that boy in the bed all those years ago, now. He can't help but be afraid of how strong this being is compared to that vulnerable child he had last seen, and can't help but respect him for this.

Adam is a mystery to Rex, and he's thinks he's amazing. Rex has no idea what happening between them, but he likes Adam, and doesn't want to lose what relationship they appear to have developed.

But in the end they separate, as Rex knew they must. Rex parts with Adam as an equal, knowing that if they were to encounter each other again, they would be enemies.

Yet, some part of him hopes, they could meet again in the future, on the same side, perhaps when the war was over. He knows though, that if the Mogadorians do win, Adam won't live to see the end of it.

Still, he hopes that one day they will meet again, and look upon each other as equals.


	11. Pointless

**Pointless**

The fight doesn't end with the war.

No, the enemy just changes.

Mogadorians, their beasts, corrupt humans, all of these just get replaced.

Replaced with PTSD and nightmares.

Replaced with grief and survivors guilt.

Replaced with a crushing sense of not knowing what their purpose is any more.

The end of the war wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be happy. It was supposed to be a holy-shit-we-did-it feeling of euphoria. It was supposed to be knowing their lives weren't in danger any more.

Except that wasn't true, was it? It had never been a possibility, not really.

Now that the war is over, some humans are actually _blaming_ them for what happened. As if they had been in cahoots with the Mogs the whole time and staged the war for no reason in particular, just for laughs.

They've been banned from several countries already, and it makes them angry, they have done nothing wrong.

They spent their entire lives trying to protect this planet, and this is the reward they get. It's just not fair. They can't even leave Earth, the spaceship got damaged in the last attack and the humans who had turned to them for help now refuse to return the favour, but they get the sense they can't live here either.

Never have they felt more like aliens in their lives.

But all is fair in love and war, isn't that how the saying goes? They're not sure where the love is, because everyone they've loved they've ended up losing. Henri, Katarina, Sandor, Adelina, Hector, Crayton, Eight, Sarah, One, Zophie - the list was endless.

The only people they allow themselves to love are each other.

They slowly come to the realisation that the war is not over, that it never will be. Because it was not Setrakus Ra at the heart of it, but the rejection of moral ideals and the ability to be compassionate, a flaw found in sentient beings. This war will wage until the deaths of every living being in the universe, long after they themselves have passed.

The war their lives have revolved around has merely hit a ceasefire. True, the Mogadorians and the Loric no longer regarded one another as enemies, but what was to stop a similar event happening light-years away, with two other races, because a member - or multiple members perhaps - of one became corrupt and disillusioned.

War has been present since the beginning of creation, a form of everlasting destructive chaos, and it shows no sign of stopping.

Their war may have ended, but as one war ends another begins, as is the balance of the universe.

It's a sad, tragic truth and the Garde wonder if their fight had been pointless the whole time.

Lorien, had, at one stage been a beacon of hope in this never ending war, even if it had had it's flaws, but now that light too had become dimmed.

A war never ends, not really. Not while there are people around who remember it, remember the horrors that happened and the worse horrors that happened afterwards.

The Garde discover this in the hardest of ways, through experience, and it may be the worst thing any of them have ever discovered or felt.


End file.
